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Life Story Work
How do you grow as a person when you cannot learn from your own history?
FCA’s Life Story Work is indicative of FCA taking an extra step in producing successful outcomes for children and young people in FCA foster care placements. FCA’s Life Story Work exemplifies that when defining outcomes, we don’t limit ourselves to the success at the end of a placement – we measure the opportunities we provide to looked after children and young people for the rest of their lives.
FCA’s Life Story Work has been developed on the premises that:
“It is difficult to grow up as a psychologically healthy adult if one is denied access to one’s own history.”
Vera Fahlberg
In essence, this means that children who do not live with their families of origin, and who may have had multiple moves, often lack information about their personal histories. This can lead to difficulties in their development of identity, self esteem and sense of ‘self’. When a child or young person loses track of their past it can make them feel unimportant.
They may find it difficult to develop emotionally and socially.
Life Story Work encourages brighter futures
Through Life Story Work children make sense of their past, gaining a balanced understanding of their present and, as an ongoing process, plan for a healthy and stable future.
This is achieved through an ongoing process of building a substantial record of their time with us. This includes information about their FCA support workers, carers, their time in respite care, photographs of themselves and other significant people and places, activities they have done, anecdotes, carers/staff members’ thoughts and memories of them, achievements, and schools they may have attended.
Interested in learning more about Life Story work? (Click on the following links)
For further information about Life Story Work, please email Afshan Ahmad: Afshan.Ahmad@thefca.co.uk
